Free Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg Page A

feedback is as eternally gratifying as enduring negativity is devastating. There is a pleasure in knowing you have made someone happy by sharing an idea or telling a story, and you can experience that pleasure only if the happiness is somehow relayed back to you.
    I don’t understand how any artist can reject positive feedback as if it is an annoyance or, worse, a burden. A friend of mine told me a story about seeing a popular British soap actor approached by a fan in a shopping centre car park and rejecting the admirer’s request for an autograph with a resounding ‘Fuck off!’ We all have days when we want to be left alone, but even when you don’t want your photo taken or have the time to stop and chat, you must surely decline with patience and good grace. Even if you have been approached a hundred times in an hour, whoever is approaching you is doing so for the first time and is probably nervous. The least you can do is acknowledge their good-natured bravery and respond with a smile, even if you don’t have time to talk to their mate on the phone or allow them to lick your face.
    It’s not always the case that people’s intentions are pleasant. I get shouted at a lot by people who simply want some facile interaction. Others will approach you specifically to tell you they don’t know who the fuck you are, even though their coy mate, standing apologetically at the bar, does.
    I hate being asked to list my celebrity credentials to rude, ignorant people who believe I owe them some sort of justification for my existence. Some people assume fame results in deafness and stupidity and, on recognising you, will point and stage-whisper, as if you’re not there, ‘Who? Where? It’s not, is it?’ as if they hope you will spare them the indignity of acknowledging their awareness of you, by holding your hands up in surrender and saying ‘You got me’. In those situations, I tend to play deaf and stupid. This is why I generally try to make my figurative knickerbockers as inconspicuous as possible. Not because I don’t appreciate affirmation from those who enjoy my stuff, or that I am even forfending against people who get a buzz from being nasty (fortunately the latter are rare), but more because persistent focused attention is actually exhausting whether it is positive or negative.
    People who are super-famous have to live bizarre, rarefied lives, far removed from any accepted notions of normality, simply because a regular existence is prohibited by their enormous, unmistakable knickerbockers. I’m not complaining by any means; I don’t suffer the weirdness that others do, people for whom the spotlight has become blindingly intense. I keep my head down and wear a hat. I try not to hang out in places where famous people hang out, although it’s nice to take my mum to the Ivy once in a while, and every now and again a premiere invite will land on my doormat that is way too fun to ignore. I reject 99 per cent of the social invitations I receive and as such don’t get photographed that much (I was once snapped picking up Minnie’s morning bowel movement but didn’t feel too invaded since technically I was setting an example to other dog owners).
    At Comic-Con one year, determined to walk the convention floor freely, without having to make too many stops, I purchased a Joker mask from a
Dark Knight
promotional stand and moved across the floor unnoticed. The irony being that it was necessary for me to wear an actual costume in order to disguise the figurative knickerbockers my profession had inculcated me with. It was an act that represented a huge gulf of experience between me and my seven-year-old self, scurrying through the crowd in the Cambridge Theatre foyer, with the specific intention of drawing attention.
    With the aid of the ESTB I might have nipped back and solemnly directed myself towards the backstage toilets. Although perhaps not. Perhaps I would be depriving myself of a valuable lesson about the